Contacts

We want to empower landowners to use and effectively communicate technical information to developers, government agencies, and other stakeholders.

Loren Toole, a principal investigator with the Lab, has been working with a group of ranchers and other landowners in eastern New Mexico to help them evaluate their renewable energy resources and prepare them for successful negotiations with wind-energy developers. Many of the landowners are members of the Coalition of Renewable Energy Landowner Associations (CRELA).

Toole and collaborators from Los Alamos, the New Mexico Renewable Energy Transmission Authority, and the University of New Mexico taught a series of five courses during the spring and summer. These courses, collectively referred to as the CRELA Landowner’s Institute, introduced the key concepts of renewable energy development with a focus on wind resources. The Institute covered topics such as evaluation of wind data, features affecting wind turbine siting, power sales markets and pricing, regulatory issues, and other factors affecting wind energy development. “We want to empower landowners to use and effectively communicate technical information to developers, government agencies, and other stakeholders,” says Toole. Much of the technical information used for the Institute was generated through the Lab’s New Mexico Small Business Assistance program.

For more information on this work, contact Becky Coel-Roback at (505) 667-1710 or write to becky_cr@lanl.gov.